$15 Now National Conference Really Is National

About 300 people showed up early for daylong $15 Now conference on a beautifully sunny Seattle morning.

I know a lot of establishment folks are rolling their eyes at the notion that 15Now.org is holding a national conference in Seattle today. Arrogantly overambitious, amiright?

But it turns out, that’s exactly what this is. Among the 300-plus attendees who have already arrived for the morning plenary session are vocal contingents from Boston, NYC, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Chicago, Minneapolis, LA, Oakland, and other cities scattered throughout the US. It really is a national conference.

And the focus of the conference is national as well. Attendees today will approve the structure of a national organization, and elect executive committee members from throughout the country. Today’s conference is about much more than passing a $15 minimum wage here in Seattle. As 15Now.org co-founder Jess Spear told the crowd, “$15 isn’t the end—it’s the beginning.”

I’ve agreed to speak at tonight’s rally on the topic of the role of the media in the fight for a living wage. What will I say? I’m not exactly sure yet. But stop by the basketball auditorium at Franklin High School at 7:30 pm to find out.

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Inasmuch as what conservatives like to refer to as the “lamestream media” is owned and controlled by rich white guys, who are increasingly inclined to interfere in editorial policies and decisions, you should talk about how to use Alternative Media to reach the public with a message the moneyed interests don’t want the public to hear, and which the public will not hear, if journalism and communications are left to those who decide what $150 million printing presses will print.

Occupy ended up achieving nothing because it lacked the ability to create something more concrete than protest.

A 15 campaign might make sense, if it were part of a real movement that goers beyond the pleasure of participation in protests and self glorification of vain leaders.

The 15 campaign looked like it might be more meaningful than Occupy. Unfortunatey, it ppearts this is not going to happen. Kshama Sawant seems to lack the leadership and political skills to build a victory . Instead she is doubling down on her movement by going back to the ballots for an all or none vote. She may come out of that as some sort of liberal heroine but she will go on to loose her seat in the district elections and become a peripheral figure.

Ah, but it’s not about the movement. It’s about what the movement can do for its most prominent talking heads.

Think pre-AOL HuffPo and Ms. Huffington. Those HuffPo authors working for free didn’t fare so well but its founder? Ka-ching.

Think Air America and now-Senator Al Franken. His political career was launched, with a salary of around $300k paid by an entity so destitute it was forced to steal from a boys club charity. AA? We know the rest.

And then there’s Al Gore and no-longer-Current TV. He won’t be digging under the sofa cushions for spare loose change any time soon.

The attendees and their laudable if not necessarily wise wishes and dreams are useful tools to those who will descend on Seattle, have their sound bites recorded and replayed by Candy, David, and George tomorrow morning, and then will move on to the next opportunity for free press.

I enjoy the sniping at Kshama from right and ‘left’ / seattle diaper pissing progressives. the righties, at least, are consistent … they just need more ammo stored under their beds, to make sure there ain’t no commies there.

How many NON bigoted NON drooling NON right wingers are gonna vote for the pathetic sacks of shit like Murray, Cantwell, Murray, Inslee, Rueven, Ross, Frank, (Dwight, Gregroire…) in the next 3 years? Since Gingrich & Tim I-Me-Me-Me-Man, Since Ronnie Raygun and Roger Ailes, when and where have the pathetic sacks of shit rolled back anything significant on economic issues?

Over and over I hear, from people who would never vote fascist cuz they’re fascists, “I’d support $15 but …”

BUT what? the f’king cravens of the Dim-0-crap party are gonna finally do something …?

I really don’t know why Republicans are looking forward to the 2014 elections. They don’t have anything to run on. What are they gonna tell voters? They voted to repeal Obamacare 52 times? They shut down the government? They cut food stamps and halted extended unemployment benefits? Who’s gonna vote for that?

On the House side, Republicans have 25 retiring members and Democrats have 16 retiring members, so Republicans must defend 9 more open seats. One seat on each side is expected to flip, and 6 Democrats vs. 3 Republicans occupy seats considered tossups, so Republicans likely will retain their majority and might expand it by a handful of seats, which is meaningless.

In the Senate, Democrats are defending 21 seats and Republicans are defending 15 seats, which works in favor of some GOP pickups. Among incumbents who would face re-election this year, Democrats have 4 announced or expected retirements and Republicans have 3 announced or expected retirements, so Democrats have to defend 1 more open seat than Republicans, which also favors the GOP. Among the 20 seats considered “safe,” 13 are occupied by Republicans and 7 are occupied by Democrats, and none are likely to change hands. Among the 16 seats considered “competitive,” 14 are occupied by Democrats and 2 are occupied by Republicans, and Republicans are expected to retain both of theirs, have a good chance to pick up 4 Democratic seats, and 3 more Democratic seats are considered tossups. Thus, Republicans should gain in the Senate, but winning a Senate majority requires them to win 6 of the 7 most vulnerable Democratic seats, which is theoretically doable but certainly not assured.

Let’s suppose Republicans keep the House and win Senate control. What does that get them? Nothing. They won’t be able to pass any legislation, and they won’t be able to repeal anything. The president will spend the next 2 years vetoing Republican bills, and Republicans will spend the next 2 years failing to override presidential vetoes. Nothing will get done and none of the nation’s problems will be solved.

This will set up a contentious 2016 election. Presidential elections are hard to predict, especially before you know who the candidates are, but the electoral college map looks very tough for the GOP in 2016, and if Hillary is the Democratic nominee, the candidate matchup looks even tougher. If I were a Republican, I wouldn’t write off the White House in 2016 just yet, but I wouldn’t be very optimistic about my changes.

The 2016 Senate map is so unfavorable for Republicans any gains they make in 2014 are very likely to be temporary. In 2016, Republicans have to defend 24 seats while Democrats have to defend only 10 seats, and Republicans have to defend 8 seats considered competitive, while Democrats have to defend only 2 seats considered competitive. Thus, Democrats should pick up roughly half a dozen Senate seats in 2016. A strong Democratic presidential candidate with strong coattails could make the GOP losses even deeper.

It also should be remembered that Republicans lost the popular vote in 2012 for all three of the President, House, and Senate elections — and that was with a foreign-born colored terrorist at the top of the Democratic ticket.

And finally, not to be overlooked, is the GOP’s fratricidal impulses. The only people Republicans hate even more than Democrats, blacks, workers, and immigrants is each other. With many Republican incumbents facing primary challenges from the far right this year, and likely the same thing in 2016, there’s a good chance the GOP will waste a lot of their campaign resources on primary fights, and then throw away their advantages in the general election by refusing to vote for their own primary winners.

@13 I don’t either. It was a free read yesterday. Must have gone behind a paywall last night. Sorry about that.

It’s an article on p. 5 of the April 28, 2014 issue of Barron’s magazine, which you may be able to find at a public library, if you’re interested. It’s about the scheming behind a corporate takeover.

The deal is too complicated to summarize here. The reporter summed it up thusly: “So let us now praise these famous men and indeed the whole state of 21st century capitalism. Billionaires can buy stocks in takeover candidates ahead of a deal. And the path to prosperity is through tax havens. If, that is, you have good lawyers. To paraphrase Dostoyevsky, if the law is dead, all is permitted.”

@15 Retirement is an obsolete concept. One percenters retire the day they’re born. To be successful in America today, the only thing you have to do is choose your parents correctly. If you do that right, everything else falls into place without any effort or thought on your part. Being a one percenter means you’ll never have to do any work. Retirement is strictly a working class concept, and the whole concept of work is now passe, which means the working class is just surplus baggage that doesn’t have to be provided for. Meanwhile, capitalists never “retire.” They keep clipping bond coupons and cashing dividend checks until they die, and then their children and grandchildren take over that task for them.

I don’t understand why everyone isn’t a capitalist. Consider the advantages: You don’t have to work. No frustrating commutes or abusive bosses. No worry about layoffs or pension plans. You don’t have to be smart, educated, or have any skills. You can sleep in. And you’ll live much better than any worker! Money will be given to you — nowadays, including money that rightfully belongs to workers — simply because you own an intangible concept called “stock” that exists only as a data entry in computer storage. The contrast between being a capitalist and being a worker couldn’t be more stark. Why anyone would want a job is beyond me. If you’re a good-for-nothing, unproductive, lazy, bloodsucking capitalist like me, you get to live the life of Reilly on other people’s sweat. Personally, I think this system sucks, and was invented by criminals for their own profit, but hey it’s what we’re stuck with, so I merely try to make the best of a bad deal.

Lance Dickie had a column in the Seattle Times today, where he supports an unadulterated minimum wage hike (for everyone, no cuts). Though he leans to the $13.58 suggested by Dick Conway’s number crunching of inflation/cost of living, it doesn’t sound like he would reject $15.

Roger rabbit quit whining, not everybody who owns a business is blessed with rich parents, a lot of us actually worked hard to get where we are at. Personally I don’t have a college degree, started as a waiter, worked minimum wage + tips jobs almost my whole life. Worked to bartender, bar manager, manager (my no min wage job), saved money & developed good credit, then bought a house, sold the house and bought a restaurant with the $ from the house. First restaurant was 7yrs ago & opened a second just under a year ago, hoping to buy a house again soon. See i chose to reinvest in a 2nd restaurant before buying a house because I though there was a good opportunity. If $15 were to go through the 2nd restaurant would immediately be losing 8k a week with the increased payroll (24%). The 2nd spot is just breaking even after a year of hard work. I would try to raise prices, maybe the neighborhood would support, maybe not. If not, i would sell the restaurant and take the $ from the sale to buy that house. Meanwhile 15 ppl will have been voted out of jobs. It is not impossible to get ahead by working hard, and not everyone was born with a silver spoon. A large number of today’s local non-chain restaurant owners were once servers & bartenders who worked their way up.

@ proud to be an ass. I am sorry it would be losing 8k a month not a week that was an error on my part, and not any attempt to mislead as many have accused some businesses of doing. Also to further enlighten, I have a biweekly payroll of $14-15k, and the 24% increase was for a flat $15 scenario, meaning no raises for anyone already making $15 or more (most of the chefs). I also ran another scenario where anyone making $14.50+ would get a dollar per hr more so the chefs who deserve it most at least get something. This second scenario where everybody gets at least some raise increased payroll by 27%. Further more 85% of the wage increases went to FOH tipped employees, a group whose lowest hourly was $19/hr looking only at verifiable credit card tips, most avg. $20+/hr we can safely assume they make another 10-15% in cash tips. This restaurant may or may not make it with the $15hr, but with the cut in profits ($15 flat scenario) to the first more established restaurant I certainly couldn’t risk the second dragging down the first more estsblished restaurant. As to how it would affect the first restaurant a flat $15 scenario would raise payroll 19%, and cut profits from about $150,000 per year over the last 3 yrs to about half $75,000, split between 2 partners. Again with the 85% of the increase going to tipped employees who at this busier restaurant avg $27/hr. Dont get me wrong $75k a year is a lot to me, combined with the freedom to make my own schedule, but i also did work for only about 25-30k per year the first 3 yrs and invest my life savings gambling on myself. With the $15 most of my employees would be making significantly more than me. In addition with more of the labor pie being taken by tipped employees it would depress and stagnate kitchen wages in the long run. Let me know if you have any other questions and I will do my best to answer.

It shows. First of all, I worked my way up in minimum wage jobs, too — to a college degree, and then a law degree, and then a public service job that paid one-third of what lawyers in private practice make. But that was okay, I chose that, because I wanted to do work that would benefit someone besides myself. Secondly, who’s whining? Not me. I’m a capitalist now. Not exactly a one-percenter, but gradually getting there. Why would I whine about that? I don’t have to work anymore. Capitalists don’t work, people give us money just because of who we are. I’m not complaining.

@ proud to be an ass. I am sorry it would be losing 8k a month not a week that was an error on my part, and not any attempt to mislead as many have accused some businesses of doing. Also to further enlighten, I have a biweekly payroll of $14-15k, and the 24% increase was for a flat $15 scenario, meaning no raises for anyone already making $15 or more (most of the chefs). I also ran another scenario where anyone making $14.50+ would get a dollar per hr more so the chefs who deserve it most at least get something. This second scenario where everybody gets at least some raise increased payroll by 27%. Further more 85% of the wage increases went to FOH tipped employees, a group whose lowest hourly was $19/hr looking only at verifiable credit card tips, most avg. $20+/hr we can safely assume they make another 10-15% in cash tips. This restaurant may or may not make it with the $15hr, but with the cut in profits ($15 flat scenario) to the first more established restaurant I certainly couldn’t risk the second dragging down the first more estsblished restaurant. As to how it would affect the first restaurant a flat $15 scenario would raise payroll 19%, and cut profits from about $150,000 the last 3 yrs to about half $75,000, split between 2 partners. Again with the 85% of the increase going to tipped employees who at this busier restaurant avg $27/hr. Dont get me wrong $75k a year is a lot to me, combined with the freedom to make my own shcedule, but i also did work for only about 25-30k per year the first 3 yrs. With the $15 most of my employees would be making significantly more than me. In addition with more of the labor pie being taken by tipped employees it would depress and stagnate kitchen wages in the long run. Let me know if you have any other questions and I will do my best to answer.

Speaking of whiners, the two guys who still post anything on Stefan’s defunct little blog are making predictably snarky remarks about President Obama’s visit to Oso (presidential visits cost a lot, tie up traffic, just get in the way of disaster recovery efforts, etc.). OTOH, Bush’s visit to Ground Zero was “useful” (for what?); but one may posit in hindsight that timely attention to warnings of an impending terrorist attack would have been infinitely more useful …

@26 The problem with the economy is not mom and pop businesses like yours. The problem is the dismantling of the middle class by corporate forces that have bought control of our government and corrupted it to their own selfish ends. The problem is too much power and money concentrated in too few hands who are not using it beneficially. The problem is the devaluation of work and diminishment of workers at all levels of the economy. You ought to be concerned about this, because without middle class consumers, you won’t have a business. As you well know, eating out at a restaurant is a discretionary purchase that a growing number of people in this country can’t afford. If they don’t have money, you can’t make money, it’s that simple.

@ 30 Whining Rabbit, most of my tipped employees would be making more than me since the already make $27 on avg. So assuming tipping wouldn’t be impacted(though I think it would)my tipped employees would go to $33/hr, while I would get half of the reduced profits of $75k, about $37,500 per year for a job that I invested my life’s savings in and took all the risk for. Meanwhile my highest tipped bartender had just over $2k in credit card tips only in 2 weeks this last payroll, not counting his $11 hr I pay him already since he is the bar manager. He would definitely loose shifts……to me. The chefs most make $15 with the highest at $20 plus benefits. These guys would be stuck wat their current salary since so much of the labor budget would be going to the FOH tipped employees, who were the ones I was referring to when I said most of my employees would be making more than me. There are 2 tipped employees for every kitchen guy, which means “most” of the employees are tipped employees and would be making more by the hour than myself.

I am concerned about the income disparity in our society, and the dwindling middle class of which I am one. Year to year in this country small businesses account for anywhere from 60-80% of jobs hiring in this country, with an estimated 70% of GDP from the few sites I could find (I will link only one). So assuming Seattle is similar in economic disbursement as the nation around 70% of the businesses affected by this are going to be small businesses, and not the large corporations we both agree should be should be better employers. What’s more these large national corporations are better equipped to withstand extreme market fluctuations. And of these approximately 70% of business affected being small businesses, a large part of them middle class it hurts them most. This is more like taking from the middle class & small business to give to the poor. If you want to go after the 1% & large chains like McDonalds or Starbucks it is better accomplished through the tax code and earned income credit. I am for a minimum wage increase, but one driven by data not ideology and phased in to minimize impact with not exceptions for anybody. Tip credit also makes sense in regards to a localized increase. Speaking for my industry only, a tip credit combined with a minimum wage increase would get the $ to the people who we all want to help, and still make sure tipped employees go home with $15/hr in their pocket.

“With the $15 most of my employees would be making significantly more than me.”

You don’t pay yourself a salary 1st and then take profits? Wouldn’t your salary be a business expense? Just asking.

You don’t have a tip sharing policy so the line cooks and dishwashers get a share? Why not?

You do not figure in any “passing it on to the customer” in your analysis. Why not?

In principle, there is nothing wrong with the employees making more than the owner. And it could just be that a good bartender is a highly trained skill….so aren’t they worth it? I mean by your numbers (I assume 20% tips) the guy is pushing a cool quarter million a year in high margin booze sales over your bar. Worth every penny if you ask me.

As a society, we have instituted public policies structuring things to redistribute income upward.

It’s time for that to change. Do you support our high dollar policies? It has eliminated millions of good paying factory jobs. Do you support our current preposterous patent policy? It costs us hundreds of billions/yr. in unnecessary higher costs, esp. for medicines. Do you support our tax policies that coddle capital income?

These, too, hurt many millions of people. Do you weep for them? If not, why should we weep for you?

Sure. Somebody’s ox is going to get gored. That’s always the case. But we’ve got to start somewhere. We cannot go on as we have.

“Year to year in this country small businesses account for anywhere from 60-80% of jobs hiring in this country”

And nearly 90% of the lay-off since most small businesses fail within 5 years.

But I’m no big fan of tipping. It sets the wrong incentives. The “tip” should be included in the price. The customers have demonstrated they are willing to pay that price. This money then becomes business income (and taxed accordingly), not hot cash to be fought over by the employees.

@36 The real problem is that entrepreneurship has been replaced by financial engineering. Many of today’s billionaires are not people who started businesses that brought new products and services to market and created thousands of good jobs, but hedge fund managers and asset flippers who strip and flip companies, destroying jobs, communities, and lives in the process. The system has been rigged to reward the greedy instead of the productive. Corporations have become welfare bums, bleeding the taxpayers. And overarching it all is the profound disrespect of workers the current system fosters. The problem is that our country’s traditional values have been discarded and things have gotten out of whack.

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